Animals on display: animal motifs, human-animal relations and social semiotics in the Bronze Age rock carvings from Enköping and Norrköping, Sweden

Anna Wessman

doi:10.37718/csa.2018.12

Abstract

Animals make up one of the most common motif groups in south Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art, with depictions of pigs and horses, as well as wild animals like red deer and wild boar, occurring in almost all rock art areas. Despite their ubiquity, their treatment in previous research has been inadequate. In this article, the display of animals in the rock art tradition is mapped out and discussed from a perspective based in human-animal relations and social semiotics. The animal figures are analyzed in terms of species, sex, human practice and regional articulations, as well as in relation to the wider archaeological record. The results reveal that animal motifs probably had a dual role during the Bronze Age, showing both the biological reality and the social and symbolic values that were connected to animals. In addition, the animals depicted in rock art also worked as carriers of semiotic resources, which manifested human social and societal ideas and ideals.

Highlights

The Bronze Age rock art in southern Scandinavia is remarkably rich, featur ing boats, human and animal figures, weapons, foot soles and other more abstract patterns and shapes, and has proved a fruitful source material over many decades of study
The overall aim of this article is to explore how human-animal relations are displayed in Bronze Age rock art
A semiotic resource is raised in particular social contexts and can be left out in others (Kress 2010:8)

Summary

Introduction

The Bronze Age rock art in southern Scandinavia is remarkably rich, featur ing boats, human and animal figures, weapons, foot soles and other more abstract patterns and shapes, and has proved a fruitful source material over many decades of study (surveyed in Goldhahn 2006). There are many elements that are not depicted which are known from other sources to have been central in Bronze Age society, notably ceramics, houses and graves (Wessman in prep.). Those that were depicted were significant in some way and are all the more relevant to study in this context. The investigation that follows takes animal motifs as its focus, reaching beyond previous work in its selection of motifs, attributes and exploration of context (cf. Malmer 1981; Hauptman Wahlgren 2002)

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Conclusion